17 Reasons Being Bad Is Way More Fun Than Being Good

Sometimes, the most convincing measure of power is its misuse. How else can one demonstrate mastery over the rules that seek to govern our lives, if not by flaunting them? Unfortunately, the desire for power and mastery (and money and fameand all the rest) can be a distorting force, forcing men down roads that they never would have contemplated were they not enchanted by these things. Equally unfortunate is the fact that we are all, to one degree or another, enchanted.

The men of this list are largely powerful, often urbane and sometimes deeply sympathetic. Sometimes, they are more sympathetic than the heroes with whom they struggle with. Where heroes are often motivated by abstractions and the settling-of-scores, the villains of film and television are more prosaic -- they want the good life. They’re out to make a killing and they’re not about to let anything stand in their way. However horrific their deeds, there is something about this drive that will always retain a certain appeal -- especially when it is portrayed as expertly as it was in these cases.